


wide-eyed, like we're in a crime scene

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anchors, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, M/M, One Shot, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 19:23:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is still working his hands across Stiles’ shoulders, firmly pressing into the rigid muscles, and Stiles just stares at him through blurry, tear-masked eyes, taking in the jet black hair and pale skin until he can finally choke out, “The last person to help me through a panic attack kissed me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	wide-eyed, like we're in a crime scene

**Author's Note:**

> This oneshot is pretty heavily based on the song Candles by Daughter (aka I was listening to the song at 2am and got a rush of inspiration, and this happened). I love angst, and I love hurt/comfort, I love big run-ons, and I also really wanted to delve more into Stiles' backstory about his mom, and I wanted Derek to be the one he opens up to because I think Derek would understand most.
> 
> Also, a HUGE thank you to my lovely th'y'la Hannah for being the best friend and beta anyone could ever ask for :)

Stiles is somewhere in the woods, sitting on a fallen tree and running his hands through his hair. He wonders when he let it grow so long, how something he’d been so vigilant about had become not even so much as an afterthought, how things became more important than tribute, than memories.

Some women go through chemo quietly, with a forced smile, accepting a wig as a suitable alternative in the name of possible healing. Claudia Stilinski was not one of those women. Stiles remembers standing outside his parents’ room past his bedtime, hearing his mother cry as she brushed her hair and brittle, too-thin clumps would fall out too easily, and his dad would hold her, but nobody could put the hair back on her head, and nobody could fix her.

When the last of it fell out, Stiles made a decision. He recruited Scott, which terrified them both because Scott didn’t know how to work an electric razor any better than he did, but this was important. And when Melissa walked into her son’s room and saw him holding a dangerous hair-styling tool an inch from his best friend’s head, she intervened, took the razor Stiles had used all that was left of his allowance to buy into her own hand, and shaved the boy’s hair right off, wiping the single tear that had trickled down his plump, pale cheek.

Melissa had taken his hand with a gentle grin, guiding it to his head, watching him begin to smile as he felt the skin, and he’d thanked her with a tight hug, whispering that she was the only nurse he’d ever met that he didn’t want to punch.

His mother cried again when he got home that day, and he’d crumpled, whispering that he had just been trying to make her feel better, so she wasn’t the only one without hair, and she took him into his arms and assured him that she was crying because she loved him, not because she was sad.

He never let his hair grow out again.

And now, years later, it’s reaching out of his scalp, and suddenly he can feel it, the weight of it, like every strand is a betrayal rooted deep beneath his skin, and his fingers start to tremble.

It smells like a hospital somehow, out in the woods, surrounded by dirt and trees and plants, it smells like a fucking hospital, of sterilized everything and of plastic food and of blood and loss seeping through the cracks in every door, and of death, always of death, and he tries to hold his breath, he never wants to smell this again, and his vision starts to blur, he gasps, but it’s not enough to fill his lungs, it’s never enough, something in him is always empty, and he knows he was busy doing important things, but Scott didn’t call today. Scott always calls today.

He’s squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to see fluorescent lights and shiny, waxed floors, and his head is tucked between his knees, his whole body is shaking, he can’t think straight or use any of his senses the right way, and there’s something ominous hovering in the shadows of his conscious but he doesn’t know what, just knows that he’s terrified, and then there are arms around him and a voice in his ear.

“Stiles, hey, hey, it’s alright, it’s okay, just relax,” he hears, and he blinks hard, he knows the voice, he swears, but it’s not, no, it can’t be-

“Derek?” he manages hoarsely, and he turns into the body surrounding him, feels his cheek scrape against stubble until he’s looking directly into the Alpha’s eyes, and for once they don’t look filled with disdain.

Derek is still working his hands across Stiles’ shoulders, firmly pressing into the rigid muscles, and Stiles just stares at him through blurry, tear-masked eyes, taking in the jet-black hair and pale skin until he can finally choke out, “The last person to help me through a panic attack kissed me.”

Derek chuckles softly, his grin genuine and not at all sinister. He continues to keep his hands heavy on Stiles’ shoulders, watches him intently as he regains a natural breathing rhythm, slows his heart rate, stops trembling, starts to relax. And then Stiles is calm, and Derek is still holding him steady, and Derek coughs and stands up, shoves his hands into his pockets.

“It’s my mom’s birthday,” Stiles says quietly, answering the question he knows Derek won’t ask. He’s expecting the look, that awful expression of pity people give because they don’t know what else to do, but Derek doesn’t give him _the look_ , because, he realizes, Derek knows probably better than anyone just how infuriating it is. And, as if Derek could read his thoughts, the two lock eyes, understanding for once just how much they actually have in common, something they’d both known but never labeled as “in common” before.

Derek doesn’t answer, just keeps looking at Stiles with an unreadable expression, so Stiles pushes himself up off the fallen tree and debates thanking Derek as he turns to leave, tugging on the strings of his worn hoodie.

“Do you wanna come to the loft for a little?” he hears, the tentative question barely reaching his ears, and he turns around, stares.

“Just for a little while--to make sure you’re okay,” Derek says quickly, “maybe get a drink you probably can’t get at home.” And because Stiles knows he won’t be able to sleep anyway, he agrees.

They don’t speak again until they’re sitting cross-legged on the open floor of Derek’s apartment, each with a beer in his hand. Stiles sips it graciously, tries to hide his grimace at the bitter taste. Derek doesn’t tease him, not tonight, just waits for Stiles to speak, and he does.

“Everyone thinks I stopped getting panic attacks years ago,” he starts, “I didn’t want them to worry about me, and there was always something else going on, you know, especially with my Dad being the sheriff, he had more important things to worry about. So I pretend to be okay, and it doesn’t happen a lot, but it happens more than it should.” He takes a breath. “It’s not something you ever get used to. It feels just as scary every time, like I’m dying or something, and I just have to wait it out because I don’t want to freak anyone out.”

Derek doesn’t have to say anything, doesn’t have to comfort him, because Stiles just needs to speak, so Derek lets him. It’s a nice arrangement, really, because Derek doesn’t talk much, and Stiles could go on forever if he needed to.

And then Stiles starts talking about his mom, how he was there, holding her hand when she died, how he can’t even remember what her voice sounded like now. “I just can’t help thinking,” he says bitterly, “that if I were able to control myself, to make my brain just _stop_ for once, maybe I could’ve paid better attention, and maybe I’d remember her better. Maybe I would’ve noticed my dad’s drinking before it got as bad as it did. Maybe some of this werewolf crap could’ve been prevented or solved faster, if I wasn’t so fucking hyperactive maybe-- maybe people wouldn’t be dead.”

He’s shaking his head, voice cracking, and Derek looks at him, helpless, because he may not be Stiles’ friend, hell, he isn’t sure if he even likes the kid, but he knows none of those things are true, and even worse he knows there’s nothing he can say that would make a difference because those thoughts have been carving themselves into Stiles’ mind for years, and he knows that because he feels the same way, blames himself for things he couldn’t stop from happening.

“It’s just,” Stiles breaks off with a dry laugh, “I take like, six times the amount of Adderall I’m supposed to on a given day, so maybe I won’t be the kid my dad thinks I am, you know? The kid everyone is always rolling their eyes at or snapping at because I can’t sit still, like I’m not trying every second, like I’m fucking doing it on purpose.”

Derek doesn’t know what to do, but he needs to do something, and he hates himself for it even as it’s happening because _really_ , but he grabs Stiles’ chin and kisses him, quick and dry and full, and when he pulls back he waits for the kid to make some stupid joke, but Stiles just looks at him, not even with disbelief, but more like he’s studying him, like Stiles is the one with the ability to monitor someone else’s heartbeat, and Derek thanks whomever for the thousandth time that Stiles isn’t a wolf.

Stiles doesn’t say a word as Derek pulls him up, and the silence would be disconcerting, really, if it weren’t for the pliance in the boy’s expression, calm and trusting, and Derek walks him over to the bed shoved in the corner of the big, empty room, footsteps echoing loudly, empty beer bottles forgotten in the middle of the room.

The apartment is filled with moonlight and virtually nothing else, who would’ve thought such a cold, lifeless room could make him so feverish, Stiles thinks distantly, and Derek faces away from him as he takes off his shirt, the black swirls of his tattoo gliding smoothly over the soft curves of his back and shoulders. And as Derek turns back toward him, he starts to shake again, but it’s not a panic attack this time, it’s more like anticipation, like want, and he’s not thinking about the fact that he’s pretty sure he’s about to lose his virginity to a werewolf--a _male_ werewolf--because somehow this doesn’t feel like a first time.

Even his clumsy, inexperienced fingers, though they’re trembling, seem to know the paths to take as they explore Derek’s chest, feeling the muscles tighten under the gentle pads of his fingers, and whatever Derek is doing to his neck, he knows he’ll probably wake up with a bruise in the morning, but it feels, fuck, it feels incredible, so he doesn’t stop him.

Moonlight is pouring in through the enormous windows, washing over Derek’s smooth chest, and his face is just a silhouette, hidden in shadow, and he’s pressing a gentle kiss to each of Stiles’ fingertips, absorbing the shivers of the boy, the scent of arousal radiating off his warm skin and submerging everything, making Derek dizzy with heat and need.

Derek could rip him to shreds, literally, Stiles knows, but he also knows that he won’t, that even though Derek is all clean cuts and warning signs and sharp edges, he’s in no danger here, pressed against his firm body, wrapped in his strong arms. Somehow it feels just as safe as it does reckless.

He blinks, and somehow their clothes are piled on the floor, and they’re twisted in the plain, white covers, Derek is whispering to him, _it’s okay, i’ve got you, shh, it’s alright_ , guiding him, strong hands molding him like clay, fingers pressing into his hipbones, and he knows Derek can hear his heartbeat firing like a thousand gunshots, and he feels whole in a way he hasn’t in longer than he can remember. And he knows Derek feels the same, that he’s making Derek go up in flames for the first time since his house went up in flames, that Derek needs some warmth back in his life, and somehow they make up for each other’s losses.

They’re sweaty, bodies slick and colliding, panting and whispering and gasping, Derek sometimes mumbling unintelligibly to Stiles, but for once Stiles can’t speak. He has no words for this. Ghosts of thoughts, of questions, are bouncing through the back of his mind, the logical part of him wants to know the terms and conditions, if this night will be filed under “drunken mistake” and never be spoken of again, or if something will come of it, but somehow he manages to push the thoughts away, to focus, no medication in his system aside from the scent and sight and presence of Derek pushing into him.

When it’s over, he can see his blown-out eyes, lids heavy with satiation, reflected in the gloss of Derek’s dark ones, just two humans tonight, lying in a bed and clinging to one another, not cuddling, but in a way full of need and longing, of two anchors keeping one another from floating away.

They stay there, unmoving, until they fall asleep, and for once Stiles’ mind is completely blank and peaceful, so peaceful he doesn’t even think to ask Derek why he was wandering in the woods in the first place.


End file.
